Plastic Lid Lamp Upcycle (a tutorial) - Day 72, Use What You've Got

The school holidays started yesterday and we started as we mean to go on - with a craft that involves, 

Using What We've Got!

I've had this old lamp in the cupboard for a while. the light itself works, just the shade disintegrated and had to be thrown out.

My daughter has also been collecting plastic lids from the milk and juice bottles for a while now - saving them for some kind of crafty endeavour.

First we had to find a way to hold the upper shade ring up to create a frame for the shade.  I had some old pieces of wood from a broken tray and we got out my hot glue gun to stick it all together.

Once we had the frame, we used some fishing wire, and the plastic lids to create the lampshade.

We used an awl to punch holes on 2 sides of each lid.

Then tied the fishing wire to the bottom of the frame, before threading it through one hole at a time to secure each lid in place all the way up to the top of the frame, where we wrapped the wire around the top, down to the bottom and up ready to start the next column of coloured lids.

We worked our way around the frame - one of us on either side, until we met.

Then after tying the loose ends of fishing wire off, we got the glue gun out again to hold the lids together and all facing the right way.

Once the glue had dried we could trim the wire and pull off the stringy glue bits.

Then test it out inside..

My daughter is very happy with her new lamp. Especially since she was so involved in making it.

And we made it just with things we had on hand!

What do you think? 

Have you ever upcycled a lamp?

Or made something with plastic lids? We still have plenty of lids left over and are looking for the next craft!